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Advocates say the law has permitted homes to give anti-psychotic drugs, use restraints and withdraw treatment without allowing patients to object. But the industry warns the ruling will make it more challenging to provide routine care to such patients.
Beginning in 2016, most Covered California customers will not have to pay more than $150 or $250 per prescription, per month. The price caps are a response to very expensive new drugs used to treat hepatitis and other serious illnesses.
The problems with managed care plans, documented in a recent state audit, stem from meteoric enrollment growth and lack of oversight, experts say.
Report finds state health officials had no idea whether managed care plans have sufficient doctors, while an overwhelmed ombudsman’s office failed to answer 12,500 calls a month on average.
A handful of programs around the country aim to ease physicians’ reentry into clinical practice, but they can take months and cost thousands of dollars.
California’s sprawling Inland Empire is making vigorous efforts to train and attract primary care doctors attuned to the needs of the fast-growing and under-served population.
In Reno and around the country, community paramedics are providing more primary and preventive care and taking nonemergency patients to facilities other than ERs.
The state is proposing to use federal Medicaid dollars to usher ill homeless people into housing, arguing the policy saves taxpayers money.
Though many newly insured Californians say they have trouble paying premiums, they find care easier to access than the uninsured and are more confident in their ability to pay for it, according to a survey.
In California nursing homes, just over 15 percent of dementia patients are on antipsychotic drugs. That’s far more than advocates say is necessary. But that number is down from almost 22 percent just three years ago.
California children are increasingly seeking care for asthma in emergency rooms – despite medical advances and millions of dollars spent to control symptoms statewide.
In bizarre, veiled conversations, some doctors vaguely hint to dying patients and their families how to hasten death. But overwhelmed families are left with profound questions and the feeling that there is no one who can answer them.
A Sacramento couple struggled to take advantage of subsidized health care coverage through Covered California in 2014 – facing one glitch after another. This year, they are more savvy about navigating the system.
Facing a shortfall of doctors -- and a dearth of money -- L.A. County, Calif., is using a web-based system called eConsult that allows primary care doctors and specialists to exchange patient medical records before sending them for referral appointments.
Faced with the possible loss of an important insurer, a large Orange County, Calif., hospital rapidly reduced excessive cesarean section rates in part by sharing each physician’s rate with everyone in the obstetrics department.
Even as end-of-life planning gains favor with more Americans, African-Americans, research shows, remain very skeptical of options like hospice and advance directives. The result can mean more aggressive, painful care at the end of life that prolongs suffering.
A Burbank doctor, with the support of the AMA, says the Medical Board of California violated his patients’ privacy by checking his prescribing practices in a state database without a court order. The board says it needs that access to protect patients from harm.
The first study to track drinking patterns at the county level finds that women are driving big increases in heavy drinking.
A teen from a Taiwanese immigrant family struggles with depression as her mother worries and tries to understand. Asian American families like this one often have trouble seeking and finding appropriate treatment.
Wynne Lee, 17, struggled with depression and cultural expectations for several years. The teen from Diamond Bar, California, is like many kids from Asian American families who often have trouble finding appropriate treatment.
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